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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
In addition to the Spanish, personnel from Ukraine, Germany and Japan have been targeted in Iraq. Terrorist attacks around the world have also become more frequent, as if fulfilling a strategic design for wider mayhem. Instead of dismantling the networks of terror cell by cell, the United States is trying to dissuade terrorism by demonstrating its greater military might. The number of terrorist cells, however, is continuing to multiply.
Historically, terrorism flourished in the chaos of the wars in Lebanon and Afghanistan. Iraq is now evoking memories of Lebanon, with the added feature of American military presence. The military presence is large enough to attract charges of occupation but not so big that it can keep the place fully under control. By waging war in Iraq to topple an evil regime that was not directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the United States has run the risk of overextending itself militarily. Combating the Shiite uprising in most of Iraq, for example, is not a necessary element of the war against terrorism. It is, however, antagonizing Shiite Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere and creating potentially active enemies for the United States where none existed before.
Al-Qaida and other extremists know the Muslim mind and seem also to have some understanding of the Bush administration's approach. They attract massive American military retaliation through violent acts, such as the murder of American civilians in Fallujah, because the collateral damage of military operations adds to the resentment of the U.S. occupation. The administration's sledgehammer approach loses America critical goodwill of existing and potential allies.
Adnan Pachachi, a senior member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, described the retaliatory operations in Fallujah as "mass punishment for the people of Fallujah." "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah," he said and added that he considered "these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." Two Iraqi governing council members have already resigned in protest over the wider violence. Such chaos in governance and law enforcement in Iraq seems hardly reflective of the well-thought-out "broader package of strategies" that Rice says has been developed in response to terrorism.
Iraq is not the only area where the administration's policy seems adrift. The United States also appears to be ineffective in untangling the knots that made Afghanistan a safe haven for al-Qaida. According to Rice, "Al-Qaida was both client of and patron to the Taliban, which in turn was supported by Pakistan. Those relationships provided al-Qaida with a powerful umbrella of protection, and we had to sever them." While the Taliban have been toppled from power, the administration's policy toward Pakistan has been to embrace its military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Rice describes this as a new "carrot and stick" policy toward Pakistan.
A $600 million annual aid package for five years helps Musharraf retain power, and his military and intelligence services periodically nab and hand over al-Qaida figures to the United States in return. But the flipping of Musharraf can hardly be described a policy achievement. Pakistan obviously had strategic reasons of its own to back the Taliban and for turning a blind eye to al-Qaida. Those reasons are unlikely to change without a change in Pakistan's leadership or system of government.
Rice has a similarly optimistic view of Saudi Arabia, another source of non-state support for al-Qaida. But the Pakistani military retreated in a recent showdown with al-Qaida supporters in its tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and the Saudis can hardly be expected to suddenly clamp down on the extremist jihadist ideology they have espoused and funded for several decades. All this points toward an ad hoc flexing of muscle, not a comprehensive strategy to root out extremist ideologies, promote democracy, and eliminate terrorism. Meanwhile, the United States flails in Iraq, swatting at one fly after another. Only al-Qaida seems to have a strategy.
